Posts Tagged ‘baking’

Natural sugars and sweeteners.

This information is not about healthy eating. This is for people who want to cut or reduce sugar from their diet but still want to enjoy celebrations with everyone else or have a special treat now and again. Some people have been able to embrace a sugar free diet and adapt their life easily. Other people find it a bit of a struggle. Everyone wants something sweet to eat now and again. These recipes are not meant for everyday eating!

Some people prefer to use natural sugars instead of sucrose in their cooking. Natural sugars are still sugar! Your body use them in the same way and they still rot your teeth if eaten too much.

Honey, agave syrup, coconut sugar, date syrup and sweeteners made from fruit such as Sweet Freedom are all natural sugars which work well in baking recipes. Maple syrup is not very sweet when combined with other ingredients so you may use more than intended to sweeten a dish.

Some recipes call for concentrated fruit juice in place of sugar. I think this is expensive, can be difficult to find and I think one of the other natural sugars I have mentioned can be used just as successfully!

I have been using Sweet Freedom sweeteners for baking and find they work really well in many recipes including sponges – the texture may be slightly different in some recipes.

I have also been working with 2 natural sweeteners called xylitol and erythritol. These come in a granular form which looks identical to sugar and can be found in supermarkets and whole food stores. Sugar can be substituted like for like with xylitol or erythritol in many baking recipes. You may find that you can use less!

In the UK erythritol can be found as Sukrin. This is a sugar alcohol with 0 calories. Read more about it here.

More information about xylitol can be found here. Xylitol is sold in most supermarkets in the UK as Total Sweet. Some of the recipes require the xylitol to be finely ground. A high speed blender is the best tool for this, if you can beg, borrow or steal a Thermomix, this would be perfect!

Eating too much xylitol or erythritol can give you a stomach upset! Please read information about it to check it is right for you.

If you are cutting sugar from your diet, you can gradually reduce the amount of sugar or natural sweetener in a recipe as your taste buds become accustomed to less sugar. Baking recipes can work with up to a third less sugar.

Sugar-free celebration cake ideas

When making sugar-free celebration cakes, you could make the filling sugar-free and decorate this with normal fondant and take this off before eating the sponge.

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Use a thinner layer of jam, buttercream, marzipan and fondant icing on your sugar-free cakes.

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Chocolate ganache is simply melted chocolate mixed with heated double cream. Sugar-free chocolate can be used for this recipe. Chocolate ganache is amazingly versatile – while still warm it can be used as a sauce or poured over cakes, desserts and chocolates and left to set. When cold it can be used in desserts or used to fill, cover and decorate cakes. It can be used as a filling for chocolates – it can be flavoured, piped or moulded into shapes. Chocolate ganache recipe.

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Many people keep the decoration from their cake as a keepsake. Sugar is often used for the decorations and can last for years. If you do not want to use sugar, there are non-toxic modelling clays available – porcelain modelling clay and Artista soft are two. Some modelling clays may not be able to sit directly on your cake. Artista soft will need to sit on a card or piece of rice paper.

Cakes covered with sugar-free chocolate ganache. Cover the cakes with a thin layer of sugar-free marzipan to give a smooth finish before pouring over the chocolate ganache. This is one of my cakes found in my book – Gluten-, Nut-, Egg- & Dairy-free Celebration Cakes.

I’ve adapted a fruit cake recipe to make it a little healthier. This uses natural sugars but you can substitute these with xylitol if you prefer. Some dried fruit contains more sugar than others so using fruit with less sugar would be better.

Adding seeds and nuts to the recipe will help slow down the rate that the sugar is absorbed into the bloodstream.

A day before – place the dried fruit into a bowl with the brandy.
Preheat oven to 160°c / 325°f / gas mark 3.
Line the cake tin with silicon paper or greased greaseproof paper.
Cream together the butter and honey until light and fluffy. Stir in the date syrup.
Beat in the eggs a little at a time.
Stir in the soaked fruit, seeds and nuts.
Sieve together the wholemeal spelt flour or gluten free flour with the ground almonds, maize flour, gluten free baking powder and mixed spice and fold into the creamed mixture.
Pour into the cake tin and level the top.
Bake for 75 – 90 minutes until firm to touch and a knife inserted comes out clean.
Wrap in greaseproof paper and store in a cake tin. I have kept a piece for 6 months and it still tastes good!

Homemade marshmallow is so much nicer than shop bought and you can add any flavour you like. Making them sugar-free works just a well as with sugar.

There are a lot of marshmallow recipes on the internet that will work by substituting the sugar and glucose syrup with xylitol or erythritol. I have tried lot’s of the vegetarian marshmallow recipes on the internet and not one of them has worked!

This recipe does work out quite expensive. You could make a sugar-free cake and cover it with normal fondant icing and peel this off before eating but if you really want to eat the icing then try this.

I have found shop bought marshmallows give a better result for this icing. Homemade marshmallow does not stretch as much and can crumble. I find Sainsburys sugar-free marshmallows work really well.

For a vegetarian or vegan icing, I can’t find sugar-free vegetarian marshmallows so I use Freedom Mallows and add SukrinMelis or xylitol to this for a low-sugar icing.

Sieve the xylitol into a large mixing bowl. A food mixer would be ideal.

Place the marshmallows into a heatproof bowl and place over a saucepan of water. Ensure the water does not touch the bowl.

Heat the water then turn down the heat. Stir the marshmallows until melted.

Once melted, scrape the marshmallow into the xylitol and stir together with 1 tablespoon of cooled, boiled water. This can be done in a food mixer. Once combined, place in an airtight freezer bag and leave for a few hours to set.

Cover your cake with the icing, first smooth over the top before smoothing the icing to the sides of your cake. Trim the icing around the bottom of the cake. If your xylitol is quite grainy it will show in the finished icing as shown here.

Method
Preheat oven to 180°c / 350°f / gas mark 4.
Grease and line an 8inch round cake tin with greaseproof paper.
Combine the flour, maize flour, ground almonds, baking powder, mixed spice and salt in a bowl.
Sieve together four times to make sure the baking powder is evenly distributed.
Measure the sunflower oil, eggs, brown sugar and vanilla into a large mixing bowl. Whisk together until paler in colour then stir in the flour mixture. Stir in the parsnip and chopped apple.
Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour until a knife inserted comes out clean.
Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out onto a plate. Now turn this onto the cooling wire so the cake cools the right way up or it could break in half.

For the topping

soften the butter for 10 seconds in a microwave or leave at room temperature before beating together with the icing sugar. This is easier if you use a food mixer with a beater attachment or use a hand held mixer. Add the cream cheese and beat until smooth. Mix in the vanilla extract and mixed spice or cinnamon to taste.
Spread onto the top and sides of the cake with a pallet knife.

Dairy free topping

Mix the icing sugar into the dairy free margarine. Do not overbeat the mixture as it will split. Stir in a few drops of water until it reaches the required consistency. Stir in vanilla extract and mixed spice or cinnamon to taste.
You may think this is a lot of icing sugar. If you use less icing sugar to margarine, the mixture will split. Add a little extra flavouring to this buttercream.
Spread onto the top and sides of the cake with a pallet knife.

I was very excited to receive a bag of pine nut meal and pumpkin seed meal from www.goldenoils.co.uk I was asked to try some simple recipes with both and I’m glad I did!

At first I thought they would be quite oily but Elena from the company explained that the oil is pressed from the kernels and the meal is what’s leftover – clever! Both are milled as fine as flour.

As well as used in recipes as a flour replacement, both can be sprinkled raw onto breakfast cereals or whatever you like for an extra boost of protein and minerals and they are low in fat.

Both flours still have their original flavour. I could taste the pumpkin seed meal in the recipes, the pine nut flavour mellowed but gave a great texture – quite like wheat flour.

With the pine nut meal I made a gluten and dairy free shortbread biscuit and lemon drizzle cake.

With the pumpkin seed meal I made gluten and dairy free chilli muffins, banana and maple syrup muffins, shortbread biscuits some quick blinis.

I thought if the shortbread worked then I would know that pastry would work too. I used the suggested one third meal to gluten free flour which worked well and think is right for the pumpkin seed meal as this has quite a strong flavour and is quite dry so in pastry and cakes they would need more liquid.

I would try half pine nut meal and half gluten free flour for shortbread and pastry next time as the pine nut meal seems to give moisture as ground almonds would but without the oiliness and strong flavour.

I tried half and half pine nut flour in the lemon drizzle cake which worked really well. The cake had a great texture and a neutral flavour.

Combine the gluten free flour, pine nut meal and gluten free baking powder. Sieve together four times to fully distribute all of the ingredients.

Cream together the caster sugar and dairy free margarine until light and fluffy. It is best to do this using a food mixer with a beater attachment or use a hand held electric mixer.

Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat lightly with a fork. Beat the egg into the creamed mixture a bit at a time making sure to beat in each addition properly before adding the next. If the mixture starts to split, mix in a spoonful of the flour.

Fold in the flours and the grated lemon zest with a large spoon.

Spoon the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until firm to touch and a knife inserted comes out clean. Leave the cake in the tin.

Squeeze the lemons and weigh the juice. Weigh an equal amount of caster sugar and place both into a small saucepan. Heat until boiling and the sugar has dissolved.

Using a pastry brush, brush all of the syrup over the cake and leave to cool.

As the top is sticky, place a piece of silicon paper on top and turn out onto a plate then turn the right way up onto your serving plate. If you have a loose bottomed cake tin, you could lift out the cake and slide it off the base.

You can finish the cake by making a glaze of icing sugar and water and spread over the top of the cake.

Sieve together the pumpkin seed flour, gluten free flour and baking powder 4 times to equally distribute the ingredients.

Melt the dairy free margarine in a microwave and stir into the flours with the egg and dairy free milk. The mixture should be a thick batter. If it is too thick, add a drop more dairy free milk. The pumpkin seed meal soaks up lots of liquid.

Finely chop the chillies and stir into the batter.

Place 12 muffin cases into a muffin tray and divide the mixture between them.

Bake for about 20 – 25 minutes. At their best for a day or two. The muffins are best served warm.

For the blinis, mix together the pumpkin seed meal, baking powder, a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper and the dairy free milk to make a smooth batter. You may need a little more liquid.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until soft peaks form when the whisk is removed.

Gradually fold the whisked egg whites into the batter mixture using a metal spoon.

Melt a little dairy free margarine in a frying pan over a medium high heat, and spoon large tablespoons of the batter into the pan to make medium sized pancakes, about 10cm/4in in diameter.

Fry the blinis, in batches, for 2-3 minutes until small bubbles appear on the surface and the underside looks cooked. Turn the blinis over and cook on the other side for a further 1-2 minutes, or until golden-brown. Keep warm.

To make the raspberry mousse
Blitz the raspberries in a food processor and sieve the puree into a bowl.
Blend the cornflour with a little cold water.
Place the caster sugar and 125ml water into a saucepan. Bring to the boil and add the raspberry puree. Bring back to the boil and thicken with the cornflour. Leave to cool.

For the swiss roll.
Line a 12 x 8 inch swiss roll tin with baking parchment. Place another piece of parchment the same size on a worktop and sprinkle with caster sugar.

Place the gluten free flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar into a large mixing bowl.
Measure the sunflower oil, vinegar, vanilla and water into a jug and mix into the dry ingredients to make a smooth thick batter.
Pour into the tin and bake for 20 minutes.
Turn the sponge out on top of the prepared baking parchment, move the sponge around so it doesn’t stick to the paper. Leave for 5 minutes with the baking parchment on top.

While the sponge is still quite hot, spread on the strawberry jam and roll up the sponge using the baking parchment to keep the sponge together. Keep the baking parchment around the sponge until cold.

Line a 2 pint bowl with cling film. Cut the swiss roll into slices 1cm thick. Line the bowl with the sponges packing tightly together.
Whip the coconut cream until thick, fold into the raspberry mixture and pour on top of the sponges.
Leave to set before turning out onto a serving plate.
You can boil a spoonful of apricot jam with a spoonful of water and brush this over the sponge if you don’t fancy coating the sponge in arrowroot.
Decorate with the whipped coconut cream and raspberries.

I’m going to work on this swiss roll recipe. It tasted fine on the first day but wasn’t very nice the next day. The mousse though tastes yummy!

The quarter final of ‘Bake off’ gave us some much anticipated ‘Free from’ dishes. We had a gluten free bread in the Signature Bake, dairy free cake for the show stopper and a gluten free technical challenge.

So can this recipe be made without dairy, soya and egg too? Yes and honestly tastes just the same as with these ingredients.

I thought the meringue would fall apart quite quickly but it was still intact the next day – probably too soft to serve. I was a bit worried about coating the sides of the meringue with the custard but now I think it would hold.

Preheat the oven to 180°c (160°c fan oven)
Blitz the hazelnuts in a food processor until coarsely ground. Spread onto a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes. Leave to cool.
Turn the oven down to 130°c (110°c fan oven).
Mix the no egg together with the pectin and 85ml cold water in a large mixing bowl. Mix on a high speed for 5 minutes.
Add the icing sugar and brown sugar 1 tablespoon at a time. Continue whisking for 5 minutes until thick and it stands in peaks.
Draw 3 x 6 inch circles on baking parchment, turn over onto two baking trays.
Fold the hazelnuts into the meringue.
Fit a piping bag with a large plain nozzle. Fill with the meringue.
Pipe the meringue into the three circles. Bake in the oven for 2 hours. Turn the oven off and leave in the oven until cool.

For the custard – heat the almond milk in a saucepan. Dissolve the coffee with a little boiling water.
Blend the cornflour with a drop of cold water. When the almond milk comes to the boil, whisk in the cornflour to thicken.
Stir in the dissolved coffee and sugar. Pour into a bowl and leave to cool. Place in the fridge until needed.

For the ganache – bring the almond milk to the boil and stir in the chocolate to melt.

Place the white sugar into a small saucepan with a drop of water. Boil to a caramel. Throw in the hazelnuts to coat. Take out the hazelnuts with two forks and place onto baking parchment to set.

When ready to assemble

Place the coconut cream into a large mixing bowl. Whisk until thick. Fold into the cold coffee custard.
Place one meringue onto your serving plate. Spoon half the custard onto the meringue. Place another meringue on top. Spoon the remaining custard on top. Top with the final meringue. Decorate with the ganache and hazelnuts.

I have wanted to experiment with egg free choux pastry for a while. This weeks challenge has given me the chance to try gluten, dairy and egg free.

The egg replacement has impressed me again!

For my first attempt I used gluten free flour. They turned out like this.

They puffed up but tasted a bit like a prawn cracker.

I thought I needed a different flour so I tried gram flour (chickpea) and it worked!

I found this recipe worked best for small profiterole sized choux buns. My larger buns had a bit of a soggy bottom! But after 30 minutes I opened them up and scraped out some of the mixture and popped them back into the oven for 5 minutes and they tasted fine.

And here is my recipe for chocolate ganache and dairy free chocolate ganache.

The recipe – Gluten, dairy, soya and egg free Religieuse – makes 4

For the choux pastry
50 grams Vitalite margarine – other dairy free margarines will work but I find they don’t puff up as much.
65 grams gram flour (chickpea flour)
4 teasoons Orgran No Egg whisked together with 8 tablespoons cold water

Chill your dairy free whipping cream.
For the choux pastry – Preheat the oven to 220°c/200°c fan oven/ gas mark 7.
Place the margarine into a saucepan with 125ml cold water, place on the heat.

The margarine should have melted by the time the water comes to the boil.
Stir in the gram flour. Stir over the heat for a minute until the mixture comes together and looks like a dough. It will have some lumps of gram flour.

Leave for a minute while you place a piece of baking parchment onto 2 oven trays and prepare a piping bag with a large plain nozzle.
Stir in the egg replacement and water a little at a time.
Fill your piping bag with the mixture and pipe 4 bulbs onto one baking tray and 4 bigger bulbs onto the other tray. The buns will stay a similar size as piped.

Bake in the oven for about 35 minutes depending on their size. Small profiteroles took 25 minutes. Make a small hole near the base of each bun after 25 minutes (20 minutes for smaller buns) to help dry out and continue baking. For larger buns, once the outside is cooked you may want to open up the bun and scrape out a little of the mixture from inside the base and put back into the oven for 5 more minutes.

For the custard – bring the almond milk to the boil.
Blend the custard powder with a little water and whisk into the milk. Stir in the caster sugar. Leave to cool then store in the fridge until needed.
For the ganache – bring the almond milk to the boil, stir in the plain chocolate until melted. Leave until coating consistency then dip in each bun and leave to set.
Just before serving place the custard into a piping bag fitted with a small plain nozzle. Fill each bun with the custard.
Stick a smaller bun on top of a larger bun. Decorate the join with the whipped dairy free cream.

Gluten free and dairy free advice and information - The special diet blog

My name is Gemma Mcfarlane. I have been cooking meals for people with special diets since leaving catering college. I became determined to offer the same choices to everyone so began researching and experimenting with different ingredients.

Many people think they have to give up their favourite foods when they discover they have a food intolerance or allergy. They are put off by bland, processed special diet cakes in supermarkets and long for good, homemade food but don't realise they can make anything better themselves.

By putting my recipes online I hope to introduce you to the joys of gluten and dairy free baking.